Chapter Ten
Outside,
Enemy,
he mused, what a funny thing to call them.
Most had been his friends; some more than that, but he refused to think
about that. This was the here and
now, not a place to reminisce.
Quietly,
he hiked through the dry forest following the bright path only seen by
him. He walked for an hour before
reaching a small bungalow half-sunken into the marshy ground it was built on. The place looked like it was falling
apart, but inside no expense was too great for the furnishings.
In
the side closest to him, a rusted storm cellar door was propped open with a
small rock by some chance. Inside,
the stairs led into an icy blackness devoid of all light. Even without the light,
The
room at the bottom was far from what he expected- in fact, it stopped him in
his tracks. The walls were only
part of the eclectic tone, being painted traffic cone orange, and the couch was
the centerpiece. The sofa was spinach
green, and, to top it all off, the pillows were red satin. Altogether, the room was a style train
wreck.
This
was it. “Pierre, you really
screwed up my image in the past twenty-four hours, but we both have a lot in
common,” Merrick started in a gruff, quiet voice, “My friends, erm,
rather my enemies, are weak, but they used to be strong; they used to be my
friends. Can you make them strong
as you tried to do to me? I promise
they won’t be smart enough to thwart your schemes. How about it?”
“I’ll
do it!” he exclaimed,
“Just let me out of this jar- it’s indecent!”
With
those words, the omelet sprang into the dark hallway leading away from the
room. He didn’t turn back,
and
It
was just as well. In the end, he
was too much of a silent person to deal with the egg-product’s incessant
chatter. Silence was most
definitely golden.
As
he pulled himself out of the storm cellar,
The
walk back was silent torture. The
leaves rattled around him in an icy breeze, uncharacteristic for this time of
year.
“Did I miss something?”
Karine
spoke up to voice her side of the argument, “I know you’ll see my
side of this! We haven’t been
able to train for a solid block of time, and we’re going to get killed
when the whole showdown happens. We
need to use our time tonight to start on weaponry training.”
Luna
stood up after Karine finished. In
a light voice she made her opinion known, “And I say we’ve done
enough. We got rid of a threatening
omelet, scared off Lucia, and lived through an attack from the vampire hunters;
we deserve a break!”
“Wow… I really don’t want to get in the
middle of this, but the pool would boost morale…” he stated quietly
as he braced against the wall behind him.
“How
did I know you’d side with her…? I’ll be in my room changing. We’ll meet down here in twenty
minutes.” Karine stated. She stormed up the stairs and loudly
slammed her door.
“Thanks,
“No. I need… help,” he started
quietly.
“I
don’t know…”
“Please. I promise to explain everything when
Karine won’t hear us.”
Please. He pushed the thought into her mind with
more energy than he should have.
When the room quit spinning, Luna was a foot away.
“I
trust you.”
And
she didn’t; within seconds she snaked an arm around his back. “Come on, I’ll help you
up. I think I know what
you’re going to say.”
Slowly, the group made their way up to the room without any casualties.
“Tell
me everything about what is happening and how the black box you’ve been
clutching figures into it.
Now,” Luna demanded as soon as the door clicked shut.
“Okay,”
he answered wearily as he sank into the bed, “I guess I can’t run
from it any longer; next month I will stop aging and become the full monster of
my nightmares. After my turn I
can’t be in the sun for long periods off time… and… I will have to consume blood more than
once a month to survive.”
“How
does all this figure into it?”
Luna prompted.
“I
don’t want to become a monster; I haven’t fed since you gave me
blood, but I’ve done more in the past week than in my entire life.”
Luna
swallowed, “So you need blood; how hard can that be? Bite me.”
“No
way in hell! I don’t understand. I just don’t
understand…”
“People
do and say crazy things when they’re in love,” she answered,
“and I love you.” Luna
paused and spoke again, “If you won’t bite me, what do you need me
to do?”
“It’s
in that box. When I was gone, I
went to visit a group of people in the new Cajun center; we’ve known each
other since we were bitten. They’ve
helped me thorough a lot, and vice versa, but they screwed me over this
time.”
Luna
carefully peeled the tape off of the box and fingered the contents,
“Syringes, and vials of blood…
How did they screw you over?”
“Usually,
I visit them once a year and have a barbeque with them. We eat, drink, and shoot up. Everyone helps everyone, but it’s
been a few years since I’ve attended. When Cavos left… I lost the heart to go anywhere,”
He
stopped and looked at his fingers.
Eventually, he answered her previous question, “They decided to
put a hex on it. While I am mildly
terrified of needles, they made it so I couldn’t… inject it
myself.”
Luna’s
eyes widened, “So you want me to- to stick a sharp object in your arm? What if I hurt you? What happens during this?”
“You
won’t,” he assured, “I really need this; can you try? Soon?”
She
hesitated, but decided fast. She
could do this, by god. Luna
nodded. “Just tell me what to
do.”
“Whatever-
just hold still!” Luna
exclaimed while she poured the vial into the well of the needle. With shaking fingers she pulled his
forearm into her lap and pressed the point to a visible vein. She quickly glanced up at Merrick, who
lay perfectly still with his eyes shut, before breaking the skin and completing
the task.
The
syringe dropped to the floor as
“Luna… You have… to leave… Now!” Merrick exclaimed when he opened his
eyes, “I can’t hold it off anymore… Your blood smells…
amazing…” His eyes
flashed red and stayed that color while he pulled her closer, eventually
rubbing his cheek on her neck.
“Let
me ride it out with you,” Luna stated as she moved so he was buried in
her shirt, “Just hold on until it passes. I promised you I would stay with you,
and I meant it.”
Karine
knocked on the door twenty minutes later.
“Are you two coming? I
said twenty minutes and that’s what I intended!” Karine called through the door.
“I
completely forgot! Ugh!” Luna shrieked as she launched herself
off the bed, “Turn around or something; I don’t want you
staring!” She waited a few
minutes for
Merrick
himself slipped out of the room, and ran right into a waiting Karine. She was draped in a large black shirt,
and her arms were crossed impatiently over her chest. “Where are you going so
fast?”
“I… Erm… Towels?”
Luna
appeared a minute or so later.
“Karine said something about getting towels to appease you. Do I want to know?” she asked
suspiciously. He shook his head,
but didn’t say a word. She
used his silence against him, “She’s going to meet us
there… Help me find
it!”
“Are
you sure that this pool will be okay to swim in? I mean, it has been a while since there
were people living here and taking care of it, it could be nasty!” Luna shuddered, thinking on what could
be lurking at the bottom of any pool.
“We
shouldn’t doubt anything in this place…”
“I’m
not afraid of a pool,
This
caught him off guard, but he knew he had to answer.
“Whatever! You have to be afraid of
something,” Luna started as she tried to look him in the eye. His eyes drew her attention like
magnets, dark, tense, as if he wasn’t really meaning what he said. “Spiders, illness, mold?
“None. Fear is a…
human…emotion.”
She
crossed her arms over her chest and huffed impatiently, “Well it probably
is to you! I fear losing my
remaining friends and having to return home to fall back into my routine of
being hated. I’m afraid of
ending up alone except for a kid from a one night stand.”
Outside,
neither of them spoke; however, on the inside,
A
few minutes later, a brightly lit natatorium came into view. The building was small in comparison to
the house and made of the same colored bricks. Two large windows allowed view into the
steamy room alongside an impressively decorated door; steam bubbled merrily
from a metal vent on the roof.
“It
looks so small from the outside,” Luna remarked, mirroring
She
continued to buzz around the room in excitement while
“
Very
stiffly, to avoid feeling weak once more, “I’d rather not get
wet.” The confusion moved on
her face in waves and she stepped closer.
“I
get the feeling you’re keeping something from me again,” she stated
warily, “and I don’t like it…”
“I
wish I could explain, but…”
“You
can’t?”
He
flinched at her deadpan tone and looked at the ground. Eventually she moved away and started to
strip to her bikini. The suit in
question was blue with silver trim that fit tight to her body. It was all
Luna,
noticing his stare before he looked away, sauntered over and crossed her arms
in front of him, “You like, don’t you? I put on my favorite suit to swim with
you and now you just won’t, so you can get any of- I’ve never
noticed you wearing jewelry before…
Can I see it?”
He
dropped the pendant that he subconsciously held onto and thought of his
control. Could he go without the
familiar weight on his chest?
Lightly,
Luna fingered the pendant and admired the craftsmanship of it. The material was some sort of stone with
a twinkling diamond set in the very center; it was smoothed into the shape of
an ornate cross, ironic for a vampire, and was only about the size of the top
bit of her thumb.
“Lapis,”
he stated, reinstating the black cord around his neck, “It’s very
old. Cavos and I have the only two
of its kind; we got them from a medicine woman in
Then,
as if called to fill in the silence, Karine burst through the door. “Did you guys feel that? I know someone was watching me
out there!” She exclaimed as
she deposited the towels on another dry seat.
Luna,
thinking Karine was joking, eased herself into the pool for a lack of anything
better to do.
In
the next few minutes, Karine and Luna were both laughing and splashing around
in the pool while
“I,
erm, I cannot explain,” he answered for the last time, “I
don’t want to ruin your fun, so I’m going to watch the sun finish
setting.” With those words,
he sped out of the awkward room as fast as possible.
Outside,
the sun was barely visible in the sky, but it was still warm from the heat of the
day. He sat against the glass
window, pulled his legs to his chest as tight as he could, and stared at the
dusk sky wondering how much wrong he was allowed to do before the gods smote
him down.
In
fact,
“Aw,
man… This sucks! He’s always been good at ignoring
me, but this is just crazy!” he exclaimed as he poked the boy next to
him. Finally, the expected
reaction.
“Please,
hear me out,” Cavos pleaded, “I want to apologize for
leaving.”
“Why
would you do that? So you can turn
around and backstab me again?”
“You
have to hear me out; I feel terrible!” Cavos exclaimed as he fell to his knees.
Nervously,
the thin boy sank to his feet and started his long explanation, “Do you
remember the day you left us all alone to shop since Lucia was sobbing too hard
to do it for herself? Um, of course
you do… When you were gone,
we got a visitor from the queen. We
had to let her in, and by her, I mean Eleni. She told us everyone was being recalled
to join forces against a group of hunters.”
“And
you believed her even after she told you so many lies after our
creation?”
“I…
well…we didn’t remember, or know any better. You were our leader… Anyway, she made it really enticing on
top of that. Lucia was told
she’d be granted ultimate power over her looks, and Vernico and I, uh, we
were promised something too…”
Cavos trailed off as he began to color in his cheeks.
That
changed
“Anyway,
she offered us the freedom of each other without scorn, and, I don’t
know, we all blindly went for it.
She let us pack and then poofed us there…” Cavos finished, slightly more confident.
“That
still doesn’t explain why you’re all trying to kill me. Once you figured out the plot against
every other person on the planet, why didn’t you leave?”
“I’m
not going to lie to you, Merrick,” Cavos answered quietly after a short
silence. “The fact that I
could live in riches with my boyfriend without having to constantly look over
my shoulder for attackers, well, that appealed to me.”
“And
our friendship meant nothing more than hunger and paranoia?”
“What
do you care? Brother, hah, that is
truly a laugh. I know how quietly
you treaded around the house. Every
time you’d look at me, your eyes were full of disgust!” Cavos spat back in defense.
“It
was not disgust at you,”
“Then
what was it? Did you even notice I
was gone until you needed to use me for some malicious purpose?” Cavos questioned, clearly on a roll.
“What
do you mean?”
Silence,
then it was broken by Cavos.
“I spilled for you, so what happened?” Cavos asked, enthralled as he traced a
few of the longer ones down
He drew
back a few feet and sat once more, Cavos did the same. Then
“And
where does this female come into it?” Cavos fed in, noticing the distant look
in
* * * * *
“God,
I am so glad that this is my last… fucking… day of school
ever,”
Blood
dripped from the cuts in a rhythmic way that both spellbound and disgusted
him. Couldn’t he even die
neatly? Apparently not. He stifled morbid laughter thinking
about the poor soul who would have to wash his blood from the pavement.
Just
as sudden as the thought popped through his mind, a small, beautiful girl
appeared at the back of the mini-van parked next to him. Leave it to this poor unfortunate soul
to park in the worst possible spot…
There were only two cars left in the lot:
Hastily,
he dropped the knife into the open back window and rolled the sleeve of his
black button-down shirt over the oozing wounds. The blood wet the sleeves a bit, but the
black made it blend into the material.
Then he turned to watch her approach the cars.
In
her hands was a heaping stack of books that impeded her line of vision; Merrick
could see what was going to happen next, but he could never have predicted it
to happen as it did. She reached
for her pocket and pulled out a key ring, and it was at that moment that the
books propelled her backwards and towards the very sharp edge of the vanity
hubcaps
Let
her die… One half of his brain demanded, pointing
out how dangerously close he was to losing all humanity, but then the other,
more selfish, part spoke up, But then you’ll have to clean up after
it… So there he stood on
the precipice of another disaster with yet another decision to make.
Within
seconds he swooped under her and held her close to his chest, protecting her
neck as he righted himself and deposited her on top of the trunk to his
car. “Are you hurt?” he
asked roughly as he pulled the sunglasses from the bridge of his nose.
“You,
you saved me…” she stated, obviously confused, “but why? No one is nice to me…” She reached up and tucked a loose strand
of hair behind her ear in a nervous gesture, and
“Yeah,
well, it’s too hard to clean up after split skulls. See, my car is almost brand new, so I
don’t need a blood stain,”
“Damn… Look, I didn’t mean it… I can’t let anyone else
die…” he stated defeated, “If you’re not hurt you can
leave me.”
“I
didn’t hit the ground, thanks to you, but I still have blood on my
blouse. My father is going to kill
me… I have to arrive clean
and on time or else…”
She groaned. Then realized her
oversight, “Wait! Are you
okay? Are you bleeding?” She then noticed his uncomfortable
stance and the soaked sleeve.
“It’s
nothing…” he growled as she tried to grab his arm. She missed the first time, but he
miscalculated her reach on the second; her hand grasped his arm in the exact
spot of his last session. It was
all he could do not to cry out, but his breathing altered from the high of
feeling such pain.
She
gently peeled the material from the gashes and stared at the carnage for a few
moments. “What happened to
your arm?” She asked naively.
“If
I bleed, I know I’m human. If
I cause myself pain, I can’t feel what others do to hurt me. Isn’t it obvious?” He asked, a feral look radiating from
his eyes. If eyes were really a
window into the soul, he had more problems than just cutting.
“You
did this to yourself? But why? Everyone has someone who loves them, and
if not, everyone will find someone eventually who does. Who loves you?” She asked. God, she was dense for a sixteen year
old…
“My
father rues the day I was born, and my friends and roommates betrayed me and
left. I’m not even good
enough for them. That’s why
today is my last day here…” he bravely answered.
She
met his eyes cautiously, “Are you moving?”
Not
even close. Tonight is the night
where I do my only good deed and die… He almost said it, even
came really close to answering with half of it. He thought better of ruining her clear
outlook on life. “Why do you
care?”
She
thought for a moment before imparting a little more of her odd wisdom,
“Because I know what it’s like to be hated every day of my life,
and the world would be a darker place without you in it.”
He
laughed darkly once more at her suggestion that anyone would notice his death,
but saw that maybe she was telling the truth. “Stay put,” she commanded in
a playful manner, “I’ll get my first-aid kit!”
Stunned,
rather than willing,
As
they both walked to respective cars, the girl turned and shouted back to him,
“Hey, you! My name is
Luna. You never told me your name,
but I want to see you here tomorrow, and the day after that, and forever after
that. Chao!” The van back away in a flourish and sped
off into the calm afternoon.
Once
the air felt like he had been the only one standing in the vacant parking lot,
he settled into the driver seat and reached for the knife once more. Luna. She wanted him alive- not just to mock,
but to enjoy the company of.
Smiling
briefly for the first time in two years, he tossed the knife out the window
where it imbedded itself into the pavement. He slammed the transmission into reverse
and followed the bold girl’s moves by speeding away.
* * * * *
“And
then I erased her memory of me the next morning; I never let her even learn my
name,” Merrick finished evenly, “I then blocked her out of my
memory of that day; that is, until the day of graduation where… I remembered everything. Everything of who, and what, I was
before I became a monster.”
“Aw,
shit, man…” Cavos drew
closer to his friend, “I never thought it would hurt so much for us to
leave. Why didn’t you call to
me? Up until recently I’ve
had my stone.”
“It’s
not your burden to bear; it never was.”
Then
the two embraced in that odd, awkward hug between brothers until
“
He
broke away from Cavos and turned away.
He could feel, even smell, Luna growing closer to him, but he refused to
face her. He’d wanted to
tell, swore he would! Yet, his
chance had never come.
“Merrick,
dude, listen; now that know what I do, I don’t want to fight you. I’ve never believed in the cause,
so is everything forgiven between us?” Cavos asked tentatively while he eyed
the pair anxiously, “I will tell my partner of this and convince him to
take the right side.”
“I
know what you are saying for I lived with you too long,”
“Thank
you, frater.” Cavos stated as
he stalked away into the darkness.
He paused slightly before entering the woods to speak clearly,
“Your graduation moment was one of glory, my friend, and I wish your
father would have forgiven you enough to have attended. He would be proud.”
With
those words, Merrick and Luna were left standing in the clearing. The sun was fully below the horizon, and
the air was cool for a summer night, but it was still warm outside. Luna shivered, and it was then that he
realized that she was still scantily clad in her bikini.
Flinching
at the unfamiliar feeling of bare arms, he pulled his shirt off and handed it
to Luna. She pulled it on without a
word, and then began to trace the scars on his exposed skin. “Was that story true?” she
asked quietly without looking up.
“Of
course. The big question is: what
does it mean for us?”